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Flow topologies in different regimes of premixed turbulent combustion: A direct numerical simulation analysis

Daniel H. Wacks1,*, Nilanjan Chakraborty1,†, Markus Klein2,‡, Paul G. Arias3,#, and Hong G. Im4,¶

  • 1School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, University of Newcastle, Claremont Road, Newcastle NE1 7RU, United Kingdom
  • 2Fakultät für Luft- und Raumfahrttechnik, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Werner-Heisenberg-Weg 39, 85577 Neubiberg, Germany
  • 3Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2125, USA
  • 4Clean Combustion Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

  • *daniel.wacks@ncl.ac.uk
  • †Corresponding author: nilanjan.chakraborty@ncl.ac.uk
  • ‡markus.klein@unibw.de
  • #pgarias@umich.edu
  • hong.im@kaust.edu.sa
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Phys. Rev. Fluids 1, 083401 – Published 2 December, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.1.083401

Abstract

The distributions of flow topologies within the flames representing the corrugated flamelets, thin reaction zones, and broken reaction zone regimes of premixed turbulent combustion are investigated using direct numerical simulation data of statistically planar turbulent H2-air flames with an equivalence ratio ϕ=0.7. It was found that the diminishing influence of dilatation rate with increasing Karlovitz number has significant influences on the statistical behaviors of the first, second, and third invariants (i.e., P,Q, and R) of the velocity gradient tensor. These differences are reflected in the distributions of the flow topologies within the flames considered in this analysis. This has important consequences for those topologies that make dominant contributions to the scalar-turbulence interaction and vortex-stretching terms in the scalar dissipation rate and enstrophy transport equations, respectively. Detailed physical explanations are provided for the observed regime dependences of the flow topologies and their implications on the scalar dissipation rate and enstrophy transport.

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Phys. Rev. Fluids 1, 083401– Published 2 December, 2016
  • Received 1 June 2016

©2016 American Physical Society

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